I don’t know why I liked this book. It’s sweet. It’s as far from cynical as one can get. It’s… nice. But the characters aren’t. They are sarcastic. And angry. Super dysfunctional. And really funny. Seven year old Elsa tells this story and she is hilarious. She’s far too smart for her age and finds other seven year olds to be boring and useless. Adults aren’t much better, especially the ones at school. Granny is her savior. Granny doesn’t have time for rules. Spelling […]
Just a Spoon Full of C12H22O11
SciFan Magazine, Dayne Edmondson, Richard M. Mulder, and Patrick Hodges, Editors (2017) This anthology is a little different than most. Not only does it include science fiction and fantasy short stories, but it also contains excerpts from new science fiction and fantasy novels. It’s an interesting way to read a bit of a novel and see if you like it or not. Clever. I’ve marked the excerpts with an asterisk. Across the St. Lawrence: A Tale of the Pendragon Empire by Teel James Glenn – […]
I laughed exactly one time.
Jeremiads have a long tradition in American lit. From the Puritan sermons railing against the turning back to Europe for guidance in the wilderness to Jonathan Edwards worrying about the materialist worldview to Martin Luther King derided fellow clergy for imploring him to have patience. The heart of a Jeremiad is a desire to take those in your fold and remind them of what’s right. Maybe that’s what has been needed among the many many discussions of how the 2016 election happened. This book seeks […]
Laughing at Race in America
I’ve beensitting on this review for a couple of weeks, struggling to know what to write. The book won the Man Booker prize, which often means a challenging read. After reading the book I watched an interview of Beatty to get a sense of what he was like. He was charming, yet deflecting. I read another interview and found that he truly focuses on the craft of writing. He’s not prolific. But the attention to every word is evident in The Sellout. The book begins […]